Review:
From the onset, Springsteen was billed as a “new Dylan”, but his first two albums were commercial disappointments. This made his third album a “make-or-break” effort WR and he delivered the first album in which he “fully realized the sound that would earn him the title of ‘the Boss.’” NRR His goal, as Springsteen later said, was to sound like “Roy Orbison singing Bob Dylan produced by Phil Spector.” TL

The effect “required months of studio tinkering to perfect” TL as the album is filled with “layers of guitar, layers of echo on the vocals, lots of keyboards, thunderous drums.” WR “Not coincidentally, it was also his first album to feature the revamped lineup of the dynamic E Street Band.” NRR “His two virtuoso players, keyboardist David Sancious and drummer Vini Lopez, [were] replaced by the professional but less flashy Roy Bittan and Max Weinberg.” WR The band also featured “saxophone player Clarence Clemons, second guitarist ‘Miami’ Steve Van Zandt, organist Danny Federici, [and] bassist Garry Tallent.” NRR

Born to Run

“Born to Run had a big sound, and Springsteen wrote big songs to match it.” WR “The overall theme of the album was similar to that of The E Street Shuffle; Springsteen was describing, and saying farewell to, a romanticized teenage street life. But where he had been affectionate, even humorous before, he was becoming increasingly bitter. If Springsteen had celebrated his dead-end kids on his first album and viewed them nostalgically on his second, on his third he seemed to despise their failure, perhaps because he was beginning to fear he was trapped himself. Nevertheless, he now felt removed, composing an updated West Side Story with spectacular music that owed more to [Leonard] Bernstein than to [Chuck] Berry.” WR “No one before or since has tried to pack as much of the American experience into 39 minutes, and no one has come as close to succeeding.” TL

The Fleetwood lineup familiar to most Americans was the one launched with this album. The band, who started out as a British blues group, was named for stalwarts Mick Fleetwood (drums) and John McVie (bass). Keyboardist Christine Perfect came on board by the second album and married McVie. Another half dozen players came and went from 1967 to 1975 over the course of nine albums.

It was album #10, their second self-titled effort, which gave them the greatest success they’d had to date. The failed California duo of Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks joined the group giving them a rare trifecta of three singer/songwriters (the other being Christine McVie) who would helm future top 10 hits.

Click photo for more about the album.

1977’s Rumours is the album that gets all the attention, but in a world where that blockbuster didn’t exist, this would be the Mac’s commercial juggernaut. On the strength of three top 20 hits (“Over My Head”, “Rhiannon”, and “Say You Love Me”), it sold five million copies in the U.S. and an estimated nine million worldwide. Previously, their albums had sold around 300,000 to 500,000. The album maintained a slow burn, taking more than a year before hitting #1 on the Billboard album chart. It held the record for longest climb to #1 until 1989, when Paula Abdul’s Forever Your Girl took 64 weeks.